Dear Lake Superior

Gitchigumee-

You are my mother and one of my greatest spiritual teachers. Your waves have taught me to move with the ebb and flow of life and to welcome the changes that each wave brings to the surface of the lakeshore.

Your water has taught me to be cool and fluid. The wind that pools above your surface has taught me to move through and around obstacles and to be flexible.

I am thankful for all of the messages you have sent a long on the breeze during my meditations. Your water, vibration, and spirit, refresh, repelenish and restore my soul. You are an invaluable entity to me on my spiritual path.

You are neutral.
You are unpredictable.
You are so powerful that you create your own weather.
You are the grand metaphor for God and for life itself.

The gratitude I have for you is immeasurable and almost beyone my poetic capabilities. The grace with which you accept me, nurture me and guide me is something that I hold close to my heart.

Your combined simplicity and complexity have taught me: love, patience, compassion, tolerance and most importantly, that I interconnected inherently to that which is greater than myself.

I know when I look into your waves that I am simply one of them as I am also simply a single grain of sand on your shore.

I appreciate all of you and have experienced the width and breadth of your being. I have been the fog, the sideways rain, the wind rattling the windows, the sky high snow drifts and your calm mirrorlike surface in its entirety.

I am so thankful for you, what you have given and what you will continue to offer.

With the deepest gratitude...

Staying Established

In our crazy, driven, fast paced culture how can we stay firmly established in our selves? Do you feel like you are easily knocked off of your center, do you hold tension in your neck and shoulders, use coping mechanisms such as alcohol or food to distract yourself from the messages your body is sending to you?

Developing a relationship with yourself can be one of the greatest spiritual challenges that any seeker faces. We all need alone time; time to nurture our minds, bodies and spirits. We receive an infinite number of messages from our body every day that signal to us where we are at any given moment; shallow breathing, chest pain, hunger, anxiety, a yawn, an adrenaline rush, a smile. How often do we really listen to what our body is telling us about our selves?

Finding your "center" or place of being established is at the root of most spiritual practices a long with various breathing techniques that help bring mind and body into balance. That center, or place of stillness and peace, is always within you and is most often only one long deep breath away. From that centered place of being, stress and tension melt away, evaporating right out of your body. Anxieties, fears and worries seem less intense, less important, easier to deal with from an objective perspective.

We all have choices about cultivating that place of centeredness within our selves. What are you doing in your life to nurture and cultivate the roots of being established in yourself?